May 14, 2023
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Another H2O demo utilizing direct samples instead of studio musicians. The great Vinia Mojica ended up recording the hook on the album version (EDIT: and Darryl Jenifer of Bad Brains (!!!!) ended up handling bass duties on that version as well), but this original demo still has a bit more grimy funk to it than what appeared on Ism.
Hard 2 Obtain’s Ism & Blues is still mad underrated, a sleeper gem (almost) entirely produced by the Stimulated Dummies (Dante Ross, John Gamble, Geeby Dajani). Before its release, Stretch & Bobbito had been rocking the group’s demos on numerous episodes of their show, and while pretty much all of these tracks ended up on Ism, a few had to have their samples replayed in the studio due to whatever clearance issues arose that wouldn’t allow them to use them directly from the original sources (this has happened often post-sample wars).
“Street Dwellers” was one of these, “Bust Me Down” another (which I’ll get to in the next post). While still similar to the versions that made the album, the use of those dusty records instead of studio musicians gives these demos that extra grit we all love in our 90′s hip-hop records. Enjoy, and go get the album already if it’s still not in your collection.